my country’s railway lines

my country’s main railway lines

my country’s railway network has been basically formed, with main railway lines running from north to south and from east to west. The main railways that run through the north and south of my country are:

Beijing-Guangzhou Line. It starts from the capital Beijing in the north and ends in Guangzhou in the south, with a total length of 2,313 kilometers. This railway passes through the five provinces of Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, and Guangdong, and across the five major river systems of the Haihe River, the Yellow River, the Huaihe River, the Yangtze River, and the Pearl River. It is the main artery for north-south transportation in central my country.

Beijing-Harbin Line. It starts from Beijing, passes through Tianjin, Hebei, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang and other provinces and cities, and ends in Harbin, the largest city in the north of Northeast China. It has a total length of 1,388 kilometers. It is a trunk railway line from Northeast China to the capital and other parts of the country.

Tianjin-Shanghai Line. Starting from Tianjin in the north, passing through Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu, Anhui and other provinces and cities, and reaching Shanghai in the south, it is the main artery of north-south transportation in eastern my country. The areas it passes through are densely populated, developed in industry and agriculture, and have frequent exchanges of personnel and materials.

Baocheng line. It starts from Baoji, Shaanxi, passes through the Qinling Mountains, and reaches Chengdu, the "Land of Abundance". It is an important trunk line connecting Guanzhong and the northwest and southwest of Sichuan.

Chengdu-Kunming Line. Starting from Chengdu in the north and reaching the "Spring City" Kunming in the south, it is another important trunk line in southwest my country.

Taijiao - burnt branches - branches and willow lines. Starting from Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi Province, known as the "Sea of ??Coal" in the north, and ending in Liuzhou, Guangxi, the "sea outpost" in the southwestern region, it has become another "little Beijing-Guangzhou" parallel to the Beijing-Guangzhou line and passing through the hinterland.

In addition to the above-mentioned large railways that run through the north and south, our country also has some important railway lines that run from east to west. They are:

Beijing-Baotou Line and Baotou-Lanzhou Line. From the capital Beijing to Baotou, the "Prairie Steel Capital", and then from Baotou to Lanzhou, the northwest industrial center, this trunk line strengthens the connection between the capital and the northwest region.

Longhai Line and Lanzhou-Xinjiang Line. The Longhai Line starts from Lianyungang in the east and ends at Lanzhou in the west; the Lanzhou-Xinjiang Line runs from Lanzhou to Urumqi. These two railways are the main arteries that traverse my country's east and west. They were later connected with the former Soviet Union's Almaty and became the "Eurasian Road Bridge." The main skeleton of the railway.

Shanghai-Hangzhou Line, Zhejiang-Ganxi Line, Hunan-Guizhou Line and Guiyang-Kunming Line. The Shanghai-Hangzhou line runs from Shanghai to Hangzhou; the Zhejiang-Ganxi line runs from Hangzhou to Zhuzhou. The Hunan-Guizhou line runs from Zhuzhou to Guiyang; the Guiyang-Kunming line runs from Guiyang to Kunming. These four railway lines form the main artery that runs from east to west in southern my country. They connect the southwestern region of my country, which is economically backward but rich in resources. It is of great significance to close economic ties between the two regions, develop the economy, and consolidate national defense.

Many railway hubs are formed at the intersection of railways. The main railway hubs in my country are: Beijing, Shenyang, Harbin, Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Xuzhou, Zhuzhou, Guiyang, Liuzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, Lanzhou, etc.

The first railway built by the People's Republic of China

The Chengdu-Chongqing Railway is the first railway built by the Chinese people on their own after the birth of the People's Republic of China. This railway, with a total length of 505 kilometers, starts from Chongqing in the east and ends in Chengdu in the west, traversing the central area of ??Sichuan. It is the main artery of economic construction and national defense construction in southwest China.

Before liberation, a province as big as Sichuan did not have a single railway. As early as 1903, the Qing government clamored to build the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway. The commercial Sichuan-Hankou Railway Company began preparations in 1903. It mainly used the method of renting shares of grain and grain, and raised as much as 20 million yuan. However, due to the line The project along the river from Yichang was extremely difficult, so there was constant debate over the design and construction plan.

At this time, in order to plunder Sichuan's resources and wealth, the imperialists wanted to seize Sichuan's right to build railways. The aggressive ambitions of the imperialist robbers aroused great resentment among the people, and they all demanded that the people raise funds. It independently operated the Sichuan-Hankou Railway and established the Sichuan-Hankou Railway Company in 1904. However, under the instigation of imperialism, the Qing government, regardless of the interests of the people, forcibly "state-owned" the private Sichuan-Hankou Railway Company and then sold it to imperialism. This treasonous crime aroused the resistance of the broad masses of the people, so the "Road Protection Comrades Association" was organized in Chengdu, setting off a magnificent road protection movement. Later, hundreds of thousands of people participated in the province. The Qing government mobilized troops from all directions into Sichuan to suppress the movement, resulting in the road protection tragedy. After the Kuomintang reactionaries came to power, just like the Qing government, they threatened to build the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway from 1936 onwards. They clamored for 14 years and spent all the people's blood and sweat, but there was not even a trace of the railway.

People sang this in a ballad:

Chengyu Road is not Chengyu Road.

It is a cash cow for the reactionary government.

The people’s wishes are in vain. ,

Chengyu Road has become the blood and tears of the people.

After liberation, the party and the government decided to build the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway. On March 11, 1950, the Chongqing Railway Engineering Bureau (later changed to the Southwest Railway Engineering Bureau) was established, and construction officially started on June 15. The Chengdu-Chongqing Railway is the first railway built by self-reliance after liberation. There are many difficulties. Under the leadership of the party, the vast number of road construction workers, with extremely high political enthusiasm and motivation, under the slogan of "the people build their own railways themselves", They worked selflessly day and night, using only domestically produced materials for road construction. People in Sichuan once launched a campaign to donate sleepers, and farmers cut 1.2 million high-quality sleepers from the mountains. New technologies were also actively created during construction, such as layered filling and tamping of roadbeds, segmented construction of long culverts, factory-made reinforced concrete, pre-drilling of sleepers and other advanced methods, which not only shortened the construction period, but also improved the quality of the project.

The construction of this railway started on June 15, 1950, and the track was laid to Chengdu on June 13, 1952. The entire line was officially opened to traffic on July 1, allowing the rich products along the line to be continuously transported to all parts of the motherland. It has played a very important role in developing industry, prospering the economy, and improving the lives of people in southwest China.

The Railway on the Roof of the World

The highest-altitude railway line in the world is my country’s Qinghai-Tibet Railway.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway starts from Xining in Qinghai Province, passes through Hargai, Delingha, Golmud, Tuotuohe, Amdo, Nagqu, and Mozhugongkar to Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, with a total length of 2,949 kilometers.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway passes through the Qaidam Basin and crosses major mountain ranges such as the Kunlun Mountains, Fenghuoshan Mountains, Tanggula Mountains, and Nyainqentanglha Mountains; it crosses the Golmud River, Chumar River, Tongtian River, and Tuotuo River. Wait for the river; most of the railways are located on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, the roof of the world, with an altitude of more than 930 kilometers at an altitude of 4,000 to 5,000 meters. The climate in most areas along the line is cold and changeable, with more wind and less rain, and thin air, making construction conditions very difficult and arduous. According to the planned arrangement, the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is determined to be constructed in sections. The section from Xining to Golmud will be built first. The total length is 834.5 kilometers and was completed in July 1979.

The place where the Qinghai-Tibet Railway passes is the road that Princess Wencheng of the Tang Dynasty passed through more than 1,300 years ago. Beautiful legends have been left here, but it has also encountered many unexpected difficulties in the history of road construction.

The plateau area from Xining to Golmud is about 30% hypoxic, and machinery that requires an engine needs to be equipped with a supercharger. There are 40 to 70 days a year here with strong winds of level 8 or above. Although there are several small rivers, the water contains salt, alkali and other chemical elements and is not drinkable and the engineering cannot be used. Therefore, small bridges and culverts need to be prepared in the factory first. Built and then transported to site for assembly. The difficulties encountered in building this railway are rare in the history of railways in my country and the world.

The Qinghai-Tibet Railway passes through the Qaidam Basin before reaching Golmud. The Qaidam Basin is one of the three major inland basins in my country and has always been called the "treasure basin". Qaidam means "salt lake" in Mongolian. Of the 32 lakes in the basin, 14 have developed into salt lakes, the largest of which is the Chaerhan Salt Lake. The Qinghai-Tibet Railway has 32 kilometers passing through the Qarhan Salt Lake.

Only the former Soviet Union and the United States have attempted to build a railway on the Salt Lake. But the former Soviet Union only built short dedicated lines in the salt mine area, and the salt lake in the United States was still a water lake. The geological structure of Qarhan Salt Lake is complex. On the outside of the northern edge where the railway passes, there is a section called a section where fine powdery sand vibrates and liquefies. Within 10 meters from the ground, there is powdery fine sand. After being soaked in salt water for a long time, the structure becomes soft. Because of the flowing nature of sand, the bearing capacity is greatly weakened by vibration. It is difficult to imagine building a railway here.

After many years of observation and extensive investigations and studies, our country's scientific researchers and railway builders decided to drive tens of thousands of sand piles into the soft stratum and pour tens of thousands of cubic meters of coarse particles. Gravel to enhance the compactness of the formation and improve its bearing capacity. Finally, a solid embankment was built on the spongy powdery sand layer. On June 23, 1979, the rails were successfully laid to the south bank of the Salt Lake, completing the track laying task of the first phase of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway ahead of schedule.

With the official opening of the railway, the inexhaustible and precious resources of Qarhan Salt Lake have been fully developed and utilized.

Beijing-Guangzhou Railway

Beijing-Guangzhou Railway includes two railways, Beijing-Hankou and Guangdong-Hankong. It starts from Beijing in the north, passes through Shijiazhuang, Zhengzhou, Wuhan, Zhuzhou and Hengyang to Guangzhou, and runs through It covers five provinces: Hebei, Henan, Hunan and Guangdong, with a total length of 2,324 kilometers. After the completion of the Yangtze River Bridge in 1957, the two major trunk lines of Beijing-Hankong and Guangdong-Hankong were connected.

The Beijing-Hankow Railway was built from the northern section first, and was first called the Lu-Han Railway, that is, from Lugou Bridge to Hankou. After the defeat of the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1894, the Qing government also realized the importance of railway construction from its failure, and officially declared railway construction as an important measure to "implement practical administration". In October 1896, Governor Wang Wenshao of Zhili and Governor Zhang Zhidong of Huguang petitioned for the establishment of a railway company, with the big bureaucrat comprador Sheng Xuanhuai of Tianjin Guandao as the supervising minister. This railway is 1,200 kilometers long, and the construction plan requires more than 20 million taels of silver. The original plan was to acquire 7 million taels of commercial shares, allocate 3 million taels of official silver, borrow 10 million taels of government funds, and borrow 20 million taels of foreign debt. The Qing government first used the official funds allocated to build a 131-kilometer section from Lugou Bridge to Baoding. The Tianjin-Yu Railway Administration was responsible for the construction. Construction started in February 1898 and was completed and opened to traffic in January 1899.

Hankou is an important land and water town in China. Connecting Hankou to Beijing has been a long-coveted goal of imperialism, so all countries have competed for it. The first was the United States and the United Kingdom, but this failed due to "excessive rights claimed" and they turned to Belgium. With the support of France and Russia, Belgium signed a loan contract and borrowed 112.5 million francs. The contract stipulates that the road construction project will be supervised by a Belgian company; all required materials, except those that can be supplied by the Hanyang Iron Works, will be undertaken by the Belgian company and enjoy tax-free treatment. During the 30-year loan period, all driving management rights will be controlled by the Belgian company. This not only caused China to completely lose its railway sovereignty, but also suffered huge financial losses, setting an extremely bad precedent for future imperialists to use debt relationships to plunder China's railway rights.

In order to speed up the project progress and save costs, the Belgian company cut corners and materials. As a result, the quality of the lines built was extremely low. Important projects such as the Yellow River Bridge also adopt low-standard design, and the insurance period is only 15 years. As a result, they are often damaged by floods and interrupt traffic.

The construction of the Lu-Han Railway started in 1898. After the Eight-Power Allied Forces invaded Beijing, the French invading army extended the Lu-Han Railway from Lugou Bridge to the Qianmen of Beijing without authorization in 1901, and it became the Beijing-Hankou Railway. The Beijing-Hankow Railway was fully opened to traffic in April 1906, with a total length of 1,215 kilometers.

After the Beijing-Hankow Railway was opened to traffic, business developed and there was a lot of profit. Under the influence of the Boxer Rebellion and the pressure from people across the country to take back railway sovereignty, the Qing government finally allocated the capital in January 1909 after many twists and turns. With an official fund of 5 million taels of silver and a loan of 50,000 pounds from HSBC in the UK and Crédit Agricole in France, the Beijing-Hankow Railway loan was paid off and the railway was redeemed.

When the Qing government decided to build the northern section, it planned to build the southern section of the Guangdong-Hankong Railway. The American Hexing Company obtained the loan construction rights for this railway. However, due to the outbreak of the Spanish-American War and internal disputes within the company, by October 1903, only 49 kilometers of the branch line from Shiweixiang to Sanshui in Guangzhou had been built in five years. Later, the Chinese government redeemed the railway due to Huamei Hexing Company's breach of contract.

After redemption of the Guangdong-Han Railway, three different methods are used by the three provinces: the Guangdong section commercial office; the Hunan section official supervisory commercial office; and the Hubei section official office. During this period, the Qing government's "state-owned railways" triggered road protection movements in Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, and Sichuan provinces, causing the Guangdong-Hankou Railway to be built and suspended. The section from Guangzhou to Shaoguan, with a total length of 224 kilometers, was completed in June 1915; the section from Wuchang to Changsha was built using part of the British loans from the banks of Britain, Germany, France and the United States established in 1911 and employing British chief engineers. . Construction started in August 1912 and was completed and opened to traffic in September 1918, with a length of 365 kilometers. The middle section of the Zhuzhou-Shaoguan section is 456 kilometers long. Due to the political chaos, it has been put on hold for more than 10 years and has not been completed. After the Kuomintang government was established, it used the Boxer Indemnity returned by the British to build this section of the railway. Construction started in 1930 and was completed in June 1936. The construction of the Guangdong-Hankong Railway took 38 years from the signing of the contract with the United States in April 1898 to June 1936. It was 1,096 kilometers from Wuchang (Xujiapeng) to Guangzhou Huangsha (today's Guangzhou South Railway Station). Officially opened to traffic. During the Anti-Japanese War, the Beijing-Hankong and Guangdong-Hankong Railways were almost completely occupied. It was not until the liberation of the country in 1949 that they were returned to the hands of the people.

The Beijing-Guangzhou Railway is not only the longest railway line connecting the north and south of my country, but also has a glorious history of revolutionary struggle.

Since the founding of the Communist Party of China on July 1, 1971, Beijing-Hankow Railway workers, under the education of the party, have realized the importance of organization from the practice of struggle. In April 1922, initiated by the Changxindian Workers Club, a preparatory meeting of the All-Road Federation of Trade Unions was held to make preliminary adjustments to the All-Road Trade Union organization. At the preparatory meeting on January 5, 1923, a draft charter of the Beijing-Hankow Railway Federation of Trade Unions was drawn up and it was decided to formally hold the founding meeting of the Federation of Trade Unions on February 1. The establishment of this federation of trade unions was completely public. Various newspapers published the news and reported it to the then director of the Railway Bureau, Zhao Jixian. Participating in this founding meeting were 65 representatives from various trade union branches of the Beijing-Hankow Railway, and more than 200 guests from trade unions, education circles and the press from various places, all gathered in Zhengzhou.

The establishment of the Beijing-Hankow Railway Federation of Trade Unions frightened the imperialists and feudal warlords. The warlord Wu Peifu instigated the railway director Zhao Jixian and the Zhengzhou police chief to carry out intimidation. The Preparatory Committee of the Federation of Trade Unions still decided to hold the meeting as scheduled. On the morning of February 1, 1923, Wu Peifu ordered the entire city of Zhengzhou to impose emergency martial law. Military police were deployed along the streets with guns and live ammunition to prevent representatives and guests from entering the venue. The delegates were furious and shouted slogans. They finally broke through the siege and rushed into the venue. They immediately set off firecrackers to start the meeting and announced the formal establishment of the Beijing-Hankow Railway Federation. The delegates shouted "Long live the Beijing-Hankow Railway Federation!" and "Long live the victory of the working class!" "The meeting lasted until 4 p.m. and was adjourned.

In the afternoon of the same day, Wu Peifu ordered the reactionary military and police to surround the residences of the delegates and guests, and the guests and delegates were not allowed to move or talk freely. The Federation of Trade Unions and the Zhengzhou branch premises were sealed and occupied, and all trade union documents and belongings were searched and destroyed. . The warlords' arrogance and violence aroused great anger among the workers. That night, the Federation of Trade Unions convened an emergency meeting and decided to declare a strike on the Beijing-Hankou Railway at noon on February 4. Starting at 9 a.m. on the 4th, in less than three hours, the entire road was stopped, and all passengers, goods, and military vehicles stopped traveling.

After the general strike broke out, the "ministerial missions" of the imperialist countries in Beijing convened an emergency meeting and issued a "serious warning" to the Beiyang warlord government, demanding an early restoration of transportation and instigating the warlords to use force to suppress the workers. On February 7, Hubei Governor Xiao Yaonan sent Chief of Staff Zhang Housheng to lead two battalions to surround the Federation of Trade Unions, shooting workers who resisted with bare hands. At the same time, he surrounded workers' dormitories and searched for striking activists. 38 people were killed and more than 200 injured. Comrade Lin Xiangqian, chairman of the Jiang'an branch and member of the Communist Party of China, was arrested.

After Comrade Lin Xiangqian was arrested, the enemy tied him to a telephone pole at Jiang'an Station and forced him to order the resumption of work. Comrade Lin Xiangqian firmly refused. The executioner Zhang Housheng ordered a knife to be cut on his body and asked him, "Do you want to go to work?" Comrade Lin Xiangqian said: "No!" Zhang You ordered to chop him again and asked him, "Do you want to give the order to go to work?" Comrade Lin Xiangqian endured the pain and raised his head. He shouted: "I need orders from the Federation of Trade Unions to go to work. My head can be cut off, but I can't go to work!" Zhang ordered another chop, and Comrade Lin Xiangqian, an outstanding Communist Party member, died heroically in this way. He fought for the working class. The cause is unyielding to the death in front of the enemy, which shows the fearless spirit of the Chinese working class. Comrade Shi Yang, legal adviser to the Wuhan Federation of Trade Unions and a member of the Communist Party, was also killed in Wuchang on the 15th. In addition, workers at Zhengzhou and other stations on the Beijing-Hankow Railway were also arrested and massacred by warlords. In order to preserve revolutionary forces, the Beijing-Hankow Railway Federation of Trade Unions and the Wuhan Federation of Trade Unions issued orders on February 9 to persuade workers to resume work despite the pain.

Although the "February 7th" struggle failed, the great power of the working class was demonstrated through this struggle. The martyrs who sacrificed their lives heroically in the struggle set a shining example for the working class. In order to commemorate Martyr Lin Xiangqian, the Martyr Lin Xiangqian Cemetery was built in early 1961 in Shangqian Town, Minhou County, Fujian Province, the martyr's hometown.

Longhai Railway

The Longhai Railway starts from Lianyungang City in Jiangsu Province, passes through Xuzhou, Zhengzhou, Xi'an, Baoji, Tianshui, and ends at Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province, with a total length of 1,759 kilometers. A major artery that runs from east to west in my country.

The Longhai Railway was originally built from Kaifeng to Luoyang, which was called the Bianluo Railway at that time. This road was surveyed as early as 1895, but due to the Qing government's lack of funds, it took a long time to lay a single rail. In November 1899, Sheng Xuanhuai, the Minister of Railway Supervision of the Qing Dynasty, applied to the Qing government for approval to fund the construction of the head office on the grounds of "preparing for the repayment of the main road and preserving the branch road".

At that time, the Belgian company requested to host the project with France as the backing, and was approved by the Qing government. In November 1903, China and Belgium signed the "Bianluo Railway Loan Contract" between Sheng Xuanhuai and Loufar, the representative of the Belgian Railway Company. The Belgian Railway Company undertook a loan of 25 million francs (an additional 16 million francs were borrowed in 1907), and obtained the rights to undertake the Bianluo Railway and the priority to connect the line to Xi'an. The Bianluo Railway started construction in June 1905 and was completed in December 1909. It was officially opened to traffic on January 1, 1909, with a length of 184 kilometers.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the people's trend of advocating road construction was very popular. There was a big landowner and capitalist named Liu Guo in Henan, who founded the Luoyang Railway Commercial Company under the guise of building a self-built railway, intending to build a section of the railway from Luoyang to Tongguan. Because Liu Guo was bent on plundering people's wealth, apportioning stock funds to various counties, and forcing salt prices to increase, this aroused strong opposition from the people and had to be stopped. In 1912, the Belgian company and the Beiyang warlord government signed a loan contract for the Longhai-Qinyu-Hai Railway (Longhai for short), merging the entire Bianluo Railway into Longhai Road, and preparing to build the east and west roads separately. In this way, the Longhai Railway is actually monopolized by Belgian companies.

Since 1913, Longhai Road began to expand in both east and west directions. Thousands of road construction workers are carrying out intense construction using the simplest road construction tools under harsh working conditions. It is 277 kilometers from Kaifeng to Xuzhou and 93 kilometers from Luoyang to Guanyintang. The terrain is relatively flat and the project is not too difficult. It took more than two years to complete the construction. It was not opened to traffic until 1924.

The equipment of the original Longhai Line was very crude compared with other lines at that time. There are only four small locomotives on the entire line. The locomotives often do not have coal to burn, so they have to use firewood instead. The corruption of its operations is well-known throughout the country. He often makes up clever names to extort tourists. Around 1930, Chiang Kai-shek wanted to extend his political, military and permanent power into the northwest and complete a transportation line to attack the liberated areas, so he decided to extend the Longhai Railway to the west. The use of Gengzi compensation was extended from Lingbao to Tongguan. It was completed in December 1931 and opened to traffic in January 1932. The line from Tongguan to Xi'an and extended to Baoji was jointly invested by the French Industrial Electric Company of Paris and a domestic banking group, and opened to traffic in March 1937. The eastern section of the Longhai Railway was contracted and built by the Dutch Port Management Company to Lianyungang. So far, the Longhai Railway has extended to 1,226 kilometers from Lianyungang in the east to Baoji in the west.

During the Anti-Japanese War, Chiang Kai-shek relied on the "aid" from the United States, Britain and other countries and continued to build several railways. Among them, the Longhai Railway was extended from Baoji to Tianshui to facilitate the deployment of troops to surround the Shaanxi-Gansu-Ningxia Revolution base area. This road was laid using the rails removed from the Longhai Railway east of Luoyang. Construction started in May 1939 and was built to Tianshui at the end of 1945, with a length of 154 kilometers. The engineering quality of this stretch of railway is very poor. The Kuomintang Government Resources Committee planned to build a Weihe River reservoir in Baoji Gorge at that time, requiring the roadbed of the Baotian section to be raised 60 meters to prevent future reservoir water storage from interrupting the railway. This would not only increase the amount of work on the Baotian section roadbed and tunnels, but Some are enlarged, and the railway lines mostly run along the mountainside slopes, causing frequent collapses, causing frequent interruptions in traffic, and becoming the "cecum" of the northwest railway. On the eve of liberation, the entire Longhai line was severely damaged and almost paralyzed. Although the section from Tianshui to Lanzhou was under construction in 1947, only 3/10 of the entire project was completed before the liberation of the northwest in 1950. After the liberation of the northwest in May 1950, the Ministry of Railways adopted the policy of "rerouting parts of the route and starting construction in key areas" Next, this section of the railway was rebuilt. By August 1952, the track laying tasks were all completed, and it was officially opened to traffic on October 1. Before that, the entire Longhai line was repaired, so that the Longhai Railway started from the east and connected to the port. The entire line from west to Lanzhou is unimpeded.

Chengdu-Kunming Railway

On the map of our motherland, along the road that the Red Army took during the Long March, a railway was built across thousands of rivers and mountains - this is the world-famous Chengdu-Kunming Railway railway.

The Chengdu-Kunming Railway starts from Chengdu, Sichuan in the north and reaches Kunming, Yunnan in the south, with a total length of 1,100 kilometers. It is connected to the Baocheng and Chengdu-Chongqing railways in the north, and to the Guiyang-Kunming and Kunming-Henan railways in the south, closely connecting the southwest border with the hinterland of the motherland. Starting from 1958, the section from Chengdu to Emei was fully constructed, and some key projects in between also started construction. It was completed and opened to traffic on July 1, 1970. On January 1, 1971, it was officially delivered to the country for use.

The Chengdu-Kunming Railway goes south from the Chengdu Plain at an altitude of 500 meters and runs along the foothills of the beautiful Emei Mountain.

In the southwest of Ebian, go up against the turbulent Dadu River and turn to Niuri River and cross the continuous Liangshan Mountains. The terrain in this area is steep, with steep slopes and rapid flows. There is a "line of sky" canyon two to three hundred meters deep. The 58-kilometer line from Jinkou River to Aida has 44 kilometers of tunnels. It is called the "underground railway" along the Daliu River. From Ganluo to Xide, you have to cross the watershed of the Min River and the Yalong River. In this 120 Within the kilometer section, the route was extended through mountains 4 times, crossed the Niuri River 13 times, built 66 kilometers of tunnels and 10 kilometers of bridges, detoured 5 kilometers, and climbed to a commanding height of more than 2,200 meters above sea level. The railway goes south from Xide, enters the Anning River Valley, and then traces up the Longchuan River to the Central Yunnan Basin, which is about 1,900 meters above sea level. The Jinshajiang River Valley is a well-known deep fault zone in geology. It is an earthquake zone with magnitudes 7 to 9. Not only are there collapses, rock piles, landslides, debris flows, groundwater and harmful gases, but there are also "one-step-hard" cliffs and cliffs that are difficult to walk on. The dry and hot "Flaming Mountain" is called the "Geological Museum". Along the Longchuan River, there are strata containing salt, nitrate, gypsum and "Longjie silt", with many criss-crossing faults. The line winds up the mountain three times in this valley, crosses the Longchuan River 47 times, climbs the watershed between the Yangtze River and the Yuanjiang River, and then goes south to Guangtong through the hills and silt areas of the Dianchi Lake area to reach Kunming.

This railway that crosses mountains and rivers has a large number of tunnels and bridges, which is rare in the history of my country's railways. The total length of tunnels and bridges along the entire line accounts for 40% of the total length of the line. There are 427 tunnels in the country with a total length of 345.7 kilometers. These tunnels include single-line, multi-line, arc-shaped and circular tunnels. There are 9 tunnels with a length of more than 3 kilometers. The longest Samurata tunnel is 6,379 meters long. There are 1,009 large, medium and small bridges. The total length is 97 kilometers. The Jinsha River Bridge has the longest span among steel truss bridges in my country, with a main span of 192 meters. There is the largest skyline stone arch bridge in my country with a length of 54 meters. In some areas, it is difficult to even find a place to build a station, so it has to be built on a bridge or in a tunnel. Among the 122 stations on the entire line, there are 41 such "sky stations" and "mountain belly stations". It is really "through the rock, through the wall, through the cave again, across the valley and across the sky, bridge after bridge." The roadbed construction along the entire line requires 95.25 million cubic meters of earth and stone. If piled into a 1-meter-square embankment, it could circle the earth twice. Such a massive project is an unprecedented feat in the history of my country's railway construction.

Desert Railway

The camel, known as the "Ship of the Desert," used to be the only means of transportation available in the desert. However, with the development of science, building railways in the desert is also a major initiative.

It is very difficult to build a railway in the desert. The climate in the desert is changeable. In some seasons, even within a day, it is like a severe winter when it is cold, and like midsummer when it is hot. There is very little rainfall, and there are strong winds and sand. When a "sand wind" occurs, the sand grains are blown away by the wind. It rises up and forms a rolling "sand flow". The roadbed is susceptible to wind erosion and sand burial, and causes wear and tear on locomotives, vehicles and communication equipment, thus affecting and interrupting traffic.

The first railway built in my country to cross the desert is the Baotou-Lanzhou Line. Construction began in 1956 and opened to traffic in August 1958. It has a total length of 980 kilometers, of which 140 kilometers pass through the Tengger Desert and the western desert of the Ordos Plateau. The 16 kilometers near Shapotou, which has the greatest sand damage, is a section that must be passed by the railway. Shapotou is located at the southeastern front of the Tengger Desert in Zhongwei County, Ningxia Autonomous Region. It is a sand mountain more than 100 meters high. Due to the lack of experience during the construction of this section of railway, large-scale erosion was caused. A strong wind overnight eroded almost all of the desert roadbed that was about to be completed. Our country's railway engineering personnel summed up their experience and finally clarified the landform, desert composition and origin, hydrogeology, vegetation conditions, protective materials, meteorology, etc. of this sandy road. When selecting the line, make the line and the dominant wind direction nearly parallel to reduce the roadbed Sand accumulation and wind erosion. At the same time, various methods were adopted for sand fixation control, and it was finally successfully opened to traffic in August 1958.

When building a railway in the desert, the first step is to fix the sand and prevent sand damage. The currently used sand fixation methods mainly include plant sand fixation, mechanical sand fixation and chemical sand fixation.

Plant sand fixation is a large-scale afforestation in desert areas, which is the fundamental measure to prevent and control desertification. Practice has proved that flower sticks, yellow willows, sea buckthorn, Euphratica jujube, Populus euphratica, etc. are plants that are adapted to the desert environment. They are not only drought-resistant, but also wind-resistant and sand-fixing.

Mechanical sand fixation is to use pebbles, clay, asphalt, reeds, hay, etc. to be buried in the sand on tall sand dunes tens to more than 100 meters above the ground on both sides of the railway, or to make squares with grass. Sand barriers, like flood levees, stop the movement of sand. This method is the most economical, simplest and most effective method of sand fixation before the plants grow.

Chemical sand fixation is a newly developed science and technology. Some use petroleum by-products, such as "asphalt emulsion" and other sand fixation. Switzerland has developed a granular compound and spreads it like fertilizer. After desertification, the sand can absorb water like a sponge and can retain water 12 times heavier than the sand itself. Once applied, it can last for several years.

China’s number one railway project

The Beijing-Kowloon Railway starts from Beijing in the north and reaches Shenzhen and Kowloon in the south. It is located between the Beijing-Guangzhou and Beijing-Shanghai Railways and spans Beijing, Lu, Hebei, Shandong, and The nine provinces and cities of Henan, Anhui, Hubei, Jiangxi, Guangdong and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region connect the Jingshan, Jingbao, Jingqin, Shide, Longhai, Zhejiang and Gansu railway trunk lines, and its strategic position is very obvious. The Beijing-Kowloon Line has a total length of 2,538 kilometers and an estimated project investment of 21 billion yuan. It is the largest railway trunk line in the history of my country's railway construction with the largest investment, the longest mileage and the shortest construction period. It is listed as the number one railway construction project in the country's "Eighth Five-Year Plan" project. Construction started in February 1993 and is expected to be fully paved by the end of 1995.

The Beijing-Kowloon Railway crosses major rivers such as the Yellow River, Yangtze River, Huaihe River, and Ganjiang River, as well as lofty mountains such as the Dabie Mountains and Gannan Mountains. The terrain and geological conditions are very complex. 549 extra-large and medium-sized bridges with a total length of 133.3 kilometers were erected across the entire line, 136 tunnels with a length of 57.6 kilometers were excavated, nearly 200 million cubic meters of earth and stone were filled and excavated, more than 170,000 acres of land were acquired, and 1.2 million square meters of houses were demolished... It is a huge and complex project. Systems Engineering. The entire line is divided into 10 sections, with both new line construction and old line reconstruction. The difficulty, the number of problems, and the short construction period are all rare.

The section from Ji'an to Dingnan in Jiangxi, known as "the most difficult and most important" of the Beijing-Kowloon Railway, has a total length of 346 kilometers and 91 tunnels. The total length accounts for 61% of the tunnels on the entire line. There are 7 tunnels with a height of more than 10 meters, and the mountains are severely weathered, and most of them are covered with weak surrounding rocks; 176 bridges have been built, including 9 extra-large bridges, 3 of which are to be built on the Gan River with a water depth of more than ten meters, and two of which are rare in China. long-span cantilever cast concrete continuous beam. Bridges and tunnels account for 18.9% of the total length of this section. The construction period before track laying is only two years, and time is too tight for the "difficult" section. Chen Jiazhen, who served as the commander of Ganzhou Headquarters, focused his energy on conquering bridges and tunnels from the beginning. He and experts and colleagues repeatedly studied and decided to adopt the method of "long tunnels and short attacks, long bridges and short construction, and division and encirclement and annihilation" to seize the construction period. played a key role.

The Ji'an Ganjiang River Bridge has a total length of 2,655.75 meters and requires the construction of 73 piers and abutments. It is one of the five most difficult projects on the entire Beijing-Kowloon Railway and the only bridge built on karst terrain. . The bridge site crosses the junction of limestone and sandstone, where there are dense caves and ravines intertwined with karst troughs and underground rivers. This has always been considered a restricted area for bridge construction. In order to complete the construction tasks of this huge bridge with high quality and quantity, the Three Branches of the 16th Branch of the Ministry of Railways invited 28 experts and scholars from home and abroad through the Ministry of Railways and the Ministry of Construction to hold scientific and technological research meetings three times in Beijing and at the bridge construction site, effectively It has effectively solved the construction problems encountered in foundation drilling in large-area karst cave groups, such as drill sticking, sinking, hole collapse, and slurry leakage. It has also overcome major construction difficulties such as the construction of cofferdams in deep water and the assembly of five large steel beams. After overcoming multiple severe floods, it took only 13 and a half months to build this extraordinarily large bridge, which normally would have taken at least three dry seasons and a construction period of 38 months. This is the first time in our country and is also rare in the history of bridge construction in the world. After the quality inspection department conducted a comprehensive inspection of 4,300 sub-projects of the bridge, the pass rate reached 100%, and the excellent and good rate reached over 90%, which was highly praised by experts and leaders.

Among the 126 tunnels along the Beijing-Kowloon line, the Qiling Tunnel is ranked first as a key and difficult project and has become the throat project of the Beijing-Kowloon Railway. It is located at the junction of Feng County and Nankang County in Jiangxi Province, with a total length of 2,536 meters. , it integrates karst caves, karst trenches, faults, rock bursts, and yellow clay. It has abundant groundwater and is very difficult to construct, and has become a hot topic at home and abroad.

More than 2,000 employees from the 3rd and 14th bureaus of the 18th Bureau of the Ministry of Railways, who are responsible for the construction tasks, boldly adopted "cement water glass double liquid grouting" and "heavy well water dewatering" under the guidance of experts, scholars and technicians. A series of advanced new materials, new technologies, and new processes have overcome numerous major difficulties such as landslides, water intrusions, mudslides, and faults, creating a miracle in the history of my country's railway tunnel construction with an average tunnel length of 133.3 meters and a maximum tunnel length of 172 meters.

The Jiujiang Yangtze River Bridge is my country’s longest-span double-deck, double-track railway and four-lane highway bridge. The railway bridge is 7,675 meters long, 900 meters longer than the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, once again setting the world’s longest span. It has set the Guinness World Record for both road and railway bridges and has made ten technological breakthroughs, attracting the attention of the world's bridge community. Among them, the large bridge welding uses a 56 mm thick steel plate that is rare in the world, breaking the limit of European and American bridge plate thickness not exceeding 50 mm.

The Sunkou Yellow River Bridge is 6,673 meters long and has 148 holes. It is currently the longest double-track railway bridge on the Yellow River. For the first time in my country, the main body of the bridge adopts the world's most advanced overall nodes. technology, and based on construction practice, this process has been taken one step further.

The Beijing-Kowloon Railway is a high-quality, large-capacity north-south corridor. Its completion will add a new addition to my country's north-south corridor